Improvement in making cast-steel



UNTTED STATES JOHN NEVILL, OF NE\V YORK, N. Y.,

PATENT @rrrca;

ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO LEMUEL CURTIS AND NEVILL & CURTIS, BY J. P. FARRAR, TO DAMASCUS STEEL MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

IMPROVEMENT IN MAKING CAST-STEEL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 16,214, datcd December 9, 1856.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN NEVILL, of New York, county of New York, and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Method of Making Gast- Steel; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same-that is to say:

This invention or discovery is for effecting the immediate conversion into cast-steel by the single operation of melting of bar or malleable iron, and which operation may be performed in a few hours. Almost any description of iron, however poor, may by this discovery be converted into genuine steel, having also peculiar qualities, which may be named as follows: great tenacity and malleability as well as the ability to be welded without using a flux; secondly, capability to stand without much, if any, deterioration, high degrees of heat, as also repeated beatings, whereby it may be easily wrought in the various ways desirable for working steel.

The basis of the invention or discovery consists in the introduction into the melting-pots or crucibles, of the usual character for melting blister-steel, along with pieces of wrought or malleable iron, of some chemicals in which the principle, cyanogen, shall be contained as, for instance, ferrocyanide of potassium, &c., and also of sal-ammoniac. That wroughtiron may be converted directly into cast-steel by the use of charcoal in the melting-pots is well known; but such steel possesses no commercial value from the fact that it will not stand any test required of that material and is practically useless. By employment, however, of the materials discovered by me all those qualities which characterize and are required of steel are produced, together with some which have heretofore been unknown to it--viz., the ability to be welded without using a flux, the ability to stand high degrees of heat without flying to pieces under the hammer, as also repeated beatings without becoming decarbonized. To all these may be added, as a great feature, the certainty of obtaining positive results by producing from a given iron any given quality of steel ad infim'tmn. It is well known that no process connected with iron manufacture is so uncertain and difficult as its conversion into steel of certain quality, and none wherein so much skill and constant care are required.

Another remarkable feature of my invention is that I am able to convert all qualities of wrought-iron into steel, from the very poorest to the richest, whereas by the old processby cementation only those possessing certain qualities are at all capable of being converted. For example, I obtain a very low steel, tough, malleable, and which can be welded without a flux, as follows: To a fifty-pound charge in a crucible add six ounces ferrocyanidc of potassium,one ounce of sal-amrnoniac, and one ounce of pulverized burned clay, (brick-dust.)

Second. To obtain a steel of similar character, but less malleable, though not capable of being welded without flux: To a fifty-pound charge add eight ounces of ferrocyanide of potassium and one ounce ofbrick-dust. Thelattter is sprinkled upon the top, audits only use is to form a cover of scoria upon the melted mass to assist in excluding the atmospheric air, the oxygen of which would interfere with the process.

To make a merchantable steel, possessing also the characteristics above set forth, the process is as follows: For the purpose of continuous manufacture the furnaces and pots suitable for the usual melting of blister-steel may be employed. Prepare the malleable iron by cutting or breaking it into small pieces. Put fifty pounds of this into the crucible, and with it ten ounces of powdered charcoal, half ounce ferrocyanide of potassium, one ounce of sal-ammoniac, and six ounces of common table-salt, (chloride of sodium.) Sprinkle on, say, one ounce of brick-dust. The pot is then to be covered and introduced into the furnace, the contents thoroughly melted, and the heat maintained for three hours, or thereabout. The mass is then to be poured off into iron molds, in the ordinary way of pouring cast-steel and with the usual care requisite for producing solid ingots. These may then be rolled into sheets or hammered and tilted into bars after the common method.

tially in the use of the various compounds of cyanogen and of sal-ammoniac, either separately or in combination with each other or with other ingredients, when mixed and fused with the wrought-iron which is to be thus converted.

JOHN NEVILL.

Witnesses S. H. MAYNARD, T. PIRSSON. 

